Lesson video

Hello, thanks for choosing this lesson.

My name's Mr. Ballin, and this lesson is all about making better food and drink choices.

Do you eat healthily? I'm sure you do, but we're gonna have a few more top tips as we go through this and plan healthier meals and snacks as we go through.

Okay, so let's get started, shall we? So what are we gonna learn today? Well, in this lesson you're going to learn how to evaluate a diet and justify changes for health.

So you're gonna look at diets.

You're gonna say how they could be changed and actually give reasons why they could be changed to be healthier.

That's a really great thing to be able to do and you're gonna do this by the end of this lesson.

And we've got some key words for this lesson, which I just want to go through very quickly with you.

Go through them with me, let's do them together.

So the first one is eight tips for healthy eating.

I know that's not just a key word, but it's a key phrase in healthy eating nutrition.

And these are practical tips for healthy eating, which are recognised nationally.

The second one is the word portions, and this is the number of servings of a food either per day or over a period of time.

The next one is portion size, and this is the amount of food per portion.

So for example, you might have a small portion or a large portion of piece of pizza, for example, so portion size.

And diet is about all the food and drink consumed.

And we're gonna look at this in a little bit more detail in this lesson.

So we've got three parts to this lesson.

Let's get started with the first one: A better diet.

So all the food and drink that you consume is called a diet over a period of time.

A healthy diet is one that has a balance of different types of foods and therefore nutrients too.

There are many different types of diets, so some of you watching might follow a vegetarian or vegan diet and other people follow lots of different other variations.

But the key principles are the same, running through all different types of diets.

A big misconception though is that the word diet means to lose weight or it be a slimming diet.

That's not true.

A diet is just a description of all the food and drink somebody has over a period of time.

So true or false, a diet means to lose weight? That's right, that's false, isn't it? And why? Well, a diet is all the food and drink that a person usually consumes over a period of time.

That might be a day, a week, or even longer.

You're probably quite familiar with the Eatwell Guide now.

And this shows all the different types of foods that we need over a period of time to have a well-balanced and varied and healthy diet.

It shows the proportions of the different food groups required.

As you can see in the picture, some are very big and some are much smaller.

There is also eight tips for healthy eating that are practical tips that cover some of the basics of healthy eating and can help us make healthier choices if we follow them.

The Eatwell Guide and the eight tips that we just looked at can be used together to make better food and drink choices.

So let's look at the eight tips in more detail, shall we? So the first one is the base your meals on higher fibre starchy carbohydrates.

So these are foods like potatoes, bread, pasta, rice and noodles.

And they should make up about a third of our diet, a third of what we eat.

And roughly we should have one of these types of foods for each of our main meals throughout the day and they provide energy.

And where possible we should choose whole grain and higher fibre versions of these types of foods and those with less added fat, salt and/or sugars.

And we should choose things also like brown rice and pasta.

The second top tip is around eat lots of fruit and veg.

I think we all know this one, don't we? And we all need to try and eat at least five portions of a variety of fruits and vegetables every day.

And the variety bit is really important.

There are lots of different types of fruits and vegetables, amazing different tastes and lots of different colours, so it's great to get a variety rather than the same thing every day.

And also, we can choose them whether they're fresh or canned, dried, juiced and so forth.

And they all count.

They're all count towards our least five a day target.

So have you been listening to that? Okay, so true or false, we should base meals on higher fibre, starchy carbohydrates? That's right, that's true.

And why? Well, it's recommended that we have one starchy carbohydrate with each mill as they provide energy, as well as other nutrients and fibre.

The third top tip is about eat more fish, including a portion of oily fish.

Now fish is a good source of protein and provides other really important vitamins and minerals and it's recommended to everyone who eats meat and fish to have at least two portions of fish per week.

And a portion is roughly 140 grammes.

And within those two portions, one of those should be an oily fish.

Now, oily fish are high in Omega-3 fatty acids, which can help towards preventing heart disease.

Our fourth tip is to cut down on saturated fat and sugar.

Now we do need some fat in our diet, but it's important to get the right type and obviously not too much of the right amount too.

And saturated fat is found in many foods such as hard cheese cakes, biscuits, pies, pastry and so forth, and we need to cut down on those types of foods.

Now, regularly consuming those foods that are high in sugars also can reduce the risk of obesity and also tooth decay.

So it's really important that we look at the foods and we look to cut down on those foods high in saturated fat and sugars.

Okay, so which of these foods should we cut down, A, B, or C? It's A and C, yes.

So we need to cut down on biscuits and cakes because we talked about the fats and the sugars.

And we also need to cut down on things like lemonade and cola if they contain lots of sugar too.

The B, that's fish, so I think we're okay with that one.

But you understand that this is trying to look at how we incorporate these top tips into our everyday diet.

Number five is to eat less salt and it's no more than six grammes a day for adults.

Now maintaining normal blood pressure is important for our health and eating too much salt could raise blood pressure and therefore lead to heart disease, so it's quite an important thing to look out for.

Most of our salt comes from processed foods rather than adding salt at the table, so we should always check food labels.

Check front of pack food labels, as well as back of pack and that will give you the amount of salt that's provided per hundred grammes or per portion too.

Number six is to get active and be a healthy weight.

I'm sure you all do this.

And to achieve a healthier weight, we need to balance the energy that we get in from food and drinks to the energy that we use through activity.

And being active can reduce the risk of disease and also help you maintain a healthier weight too.

Now let's look at these food labels.

I just mentioned them, didn't I? Have a look and tell me which one has the least salt? These are three different types of sandwiches, so which one provides the least amount of salt? That's right, well done everybody, it's A.

And if you look at the food label, you can see under A, salt is 1.

8 grammes and it's amber.

Whereas the others are 2.

4 or three grammes per sandwich and they're in red, so therefore that gives us the lowest salt for that sandwich.

And you can see here how you could use food labels to choose healthier types of packaged foods.

The next top tip is do not get thirsty.

That's really important.

We lose water all day when we sweat, breathe and we use the toilet, so we need to replenish that water.

And it's recommended that we have around six to eight glasses of fluid every day to stop us becoming dehydrated.

And also we need to drink more when the weather's hot or we're being really active too.

I'm sure you get thirsty if you've been running around playing football or just enjoying cycling for example too.

Now water is a great choice of a drink and we also need to make sure we drink less sugary drinks too.

And the last top tip is do not skip breakfast.

Really important one.

So breakfast provides us with the energy as well as some important nutrients that we need for good health.

It can help us at school particularly to increase our concentration and alertness during the morning.

And when we're gonna pick a breakfast, we need to think about things that maybe are whole grain cereals or perhaps some wholemeal toast too.

And obviously we'd make sure we've got some fruits and vegetables with that too.

So that's our eight top tips.

Now, do you remember how many drinks should we have each day, A, B, or C? That's right, it is B, we need to have six to eight drinks every day and you might need more if the weather's hot or you're being very active.

Okay, I got my first task for you here.

I'm sure you'll do brilliantly at this 'cause you've been listening really well.

So I want you to think about each of the eight tips and I want you to describe how you could implement these into a normal diet.

So how could you use a top tip and what advice could you give to somebody? So let's list them, shall we? So base your meals and higher fibre.

Eat lots of fruit and veg.

Eat more fish.

Cut down saturated fat and sugar.

Eat less salt.

Get active and be a healthy weight.

Do not get thirsty.

Do not skip breakfast.

Okay, good luck.

And you might want to pause a video while you're undertaking this task.

Okay, so let's see how you got on with this one.

So the first one, base your meals and higher fibre starchy carbohydrates.

What did you put? An example could be to have brown rice or whole grain cereals.

So it's really trying to think about how you can give practical advice and top tips to people.

The second one, eat lots of fruit and veg.

Well that could be things around making sure you have fruits and vegetables with each meal.

So making sure you have something at breakfast, lunch and evening meals, perhaps having them for snacks too.

The third one, eat more fish.

Well this is the kind of one you probably have to say, maybe make a plan over a week to make sure you get your two portions of fish, one of which should be oily.

And number four, cut down on saturated fat and sugar.

Well, let's think about what you snack on.

Perhaps you could have more fruit and veg as snacks and less chocolate and sweets.

But there are lots of different examples and I'm sure you did some brilliant ones for top tips one to four.

Number five, eat less salt.

So for example, we could give advice around don't add salt when cooking or checking food labels like we did earlier.

Number eight, get active and be a healthy weight.

Well walk more, do more exercise for example.

That would really help too.

Remember it's about energy in and energy out.

Number seven, do not get thirsty.

Well, we need to make sure we have at least six to eight drinks a day and you could carry a water bottle for example.

And the last one, do not skip breakfast, just try and make time for breakfast each day and make sure it's a really nice healthy, balanced variety of different types of foods at your breakfast time.

So well done.

I'm sure you came up with some really good examples there.

And these were just some samples to show you what you could have done.

Let's move on to the second part of the lesson: Better food portions.

Now based on the Eatwell Guide food groups, there are suggestions for the number of portions or servings of each group per day.

Now you can see in the graphic here what it says.

So for example, around fruits and vegetables, we need at least five of these portions or servings per day.

For the starchy group, around three or four portions.

For the protein type group, two or three portions.

And the dairy and alternatives, around two to three portions too.

For the oils and spreads, we should just be having tiny amounts.

Now we can use this information to help guide and plan meals across the day because we know roughly how many portions or servings we should be looking at.

Now, portion size is different, portion size is about the amount of food eaten.

And while the types of food we need are similar, the amount we need varies.

So for example, if you think about a young child, the amount of food or the portion size that they might have might be quite different to an adult.

And portion size depends on many different factors.

There are so many to think about.

But it could be age like I've mentioned, or perhaps if someone's active too.

And sometimes we might just eat more when we're hungry.

Now the size of the portion affects the amount of energy or calories and nutrients that are provided.

So for example, the bigger the portion could mean more energy, more calories.

So thinking about that, just based on this nutrition information, which one do you think is the biggest portion of the same type of pizza, A, B, or C? So just look at the numbers.

That's right.

Well done.

You did really well there.

Yes, it's C because it's providing the most energy and the most fat proportion because it's a larger portion than the others.

Well done.

Now some portions are recommended to us and we've already looked at some of these already in this lesson.

So for example, we need to have at least five a day and we've even got recommendations about how much that should be.

So on average, a portion of fruit and vegetable is 80 grammes.

And if it's a dried fruit, for example, like apricots or sultanas, it's 30 grammes.

And for fruit juice or a smoothie, it's 150 millilitres a maximum per day.

So they're the recommendations around the food portion size for fruit and vegetables.

But we also have it for fish, and we've already touched upon this in this lesson.

So we're recommended to have at least two portions of fish per week, one of which should be an oily fish.

And also drinks, and we've touched upon this a couple of times now that we should have around six to eight drinks per day to be well hydrated.

Now do you remember this? How much is the recommended portion of dried apricots, is it A, B, or C? That's right is B, it's 30 grammes.

So some foods were given how many portions or servings per day and some foods were told what the portion size is.

So this is the portion size of 30 grammes.

Okay, I've got a little task here for you.

I want you to plan some meals for a day, so breakfast, lunch, and an evening meal, that meet the number of portions for each food group.

And I want you to justify your choices, I want you to explain why you've done what you've done.

So for example, if we're looking at fruits and vegetables, I want to make sure between the breakfast, lunch, and evening meal that you provided at least five portions of fruits and vegetables.

You need to make sure you provided three to four portions of starchy food and then two to three portions of protein food and two to three portions of dairy and alternative food across the whole day.

I'm sure you'll do brilliantly.

Remember to pause the video and then we'll come back and look at the answers together.

Good luck.

Okay, so how did you get on? Did you do well? I bet you did.

Let's look at an example of an answer, shall we? So here's a little list that I put together for my breakfast, lunch, and evening meal.

And you can see here I've got a variety of different foods and I'm gonna justify them to you.

And so think about what you've put and how you've justified your choices as you go through.

So the first thing I want to highlight is across the day from breakfast, lunch, and evening meal, I've had six portions of fruit and vegetables.

And I've had a variety of different fruits and vegetables, so I've met my five a day.

So I've had a banana, I've got orange juice, I've had some carrot sticks, cucumber, peas, peaches.

I've had quite a lot there.

My next thing I'm gonna say that I've had three portions of starchy foods.

So again, I can look at that.

I had porridge, which is a starchy food, wholemeal bread, and I've had potato wedges in the evening.

And what I've tried to do here is to pick things that are whole grain or perhaps that are higher in fibre.

So I've left the skin on the wedges as that provides more fibre in the diet.

Let's look at the other two groups, shall we? So protein foods.

So I've actually got two portions of protein foods throughout the day.

Let's have a quick look.

I've got hummus, which is made from chickpeas and I've got poached fish.

So I'm making sure I'm looking at that recommendation for fish during the week.

And the last one is I'm looking at dairy and I've actually had three portions of dairy in this meal.

I've had the milk in the morning with my porridge, I've had a small piece of cheese at my lunchtime and I've had a yoghourt in the evening.

So you can see how easy it is to look at the diet across the day and look at the number of portions which link back to the Eatwell Guide.

So it's a very easy way of planning menus to make sure they're healthy but also varied too.

Right, let's look at the final part of the lesson: Making better choices.

Now, we've already looked at in this lesson, haven't we, that the Eatwell Guide and the eight tips for healthy eating and food portions can be used together to help us make better food and drink choices.

All three of them blend together really nicely and they can help us plan a diet, like we've had to look at.

You can evaluate a diet, say well, has it got five portions of fruits and vegetables? Have they had six to eight drinks a day? Over time, have they had the fish? So you can use it to help plan and evaluate, justify too.

And then you can then look at the health side too.

So you know, has this really made some good changes to the diet? So a quick check.

Okay, so let's read this one together.

Is this true or false? Only the Eatwell Guide and the eight tips for healthy eating can be used to make better food and drink choices.

So only those two things, is that true or false? That's right, that's false, isn't it? There's so many other things that we could use.

We've looked at today, food portions, they also play an important role.

So we should use the Eatwell Guide, the eight tips and food portions to help us make better food and drink choices.

And within the eight tips, there's things like using food labels too.

So there's lots of information that we can use to help plan and justify different types of diets that are healthier for us.

So when we're making better choices, we can ask some key questions about the diet.

So the first one, if we think about the Eatwell Guide, is the diet in line with the proportions of the food groups, so the sizes of the groups, and are there a variety of foods even within those groups? So lots of different types of fruits and vegetables, different types of starchy carbohydrates, for example.

When we think about the eight tips, which we looked at, does the diet follow these tips? So for example, does it have five a day? Are there six to eight drinks? Is there less fat, salt and sugars? So we can use these to help plan, but also evaluate a diet.

Lastly, portions, you know, are the number of servings of each food group met each day? So in summary, we can use the answers to those questions to help justify healthier changes to our diet.

So what does this look like in practise? Well, for everybody we should make sure we consume at least five a day.

We've talked about that regularly.

So most people know the five a day message, but it's also about that variety of different types of fruits and vegetables too.

Think of lots of different colours like a rainbow.

We need to make sure our meals are based on starchy foods.

So breakfast could be a cereal, lunch might be a sandwich or a jacket potato.

And in the evening it could be things like rice or pasta or cassava, for example.

We should have six to eight drinks every day to keep us well hydrated.

We need to reduce foods that are high in fat, salt and sugars.

We need to have the correct portions of foods too, that's really important, so we don't have too much.

We need to eat two portions of fish a week, one of which should be oily.

And lastly, we should make sure we have breakfast every day.

So these are things that we can use to help plan and evaluate healthier diets.

Right, so which of these groups of foods should we eat more of? Have a quick look, A, B, or C? Yes, that's right, we should all eat more fish.

Here's another task for you.

So this is about evaluating a diet and we're going to evaluate this diet from Andeep.

So I want you to think about it and justify any changes that might need to be made.

Now have a look at the meal occasion, so the meal during the day, as well as the food and drinks that he's consumed.

And I want you to think about and consider these tips.

We've just been through them, do you remember? So is he getting at least five a day? Are the meals based on starchy foods? Is he having six to eight drinks? So use that list, go through what he's had, evaluate the diet, and then talk about and justify any changes that might be needed.

I'm sure you do really well, it's a little challenging, but I have faith in you that you'll do brilliantly.

Pause the video and we'll come back together very shortly.

Welcome back.

So how did you get on? I bet you did really well, didn't you? Right, let's just have a look though at some example responses that you may have picked up on.

So for example, he needs more fruit and vegetables in his diet.

So he needs more fruit at lunch and really snack time too.

He had starchy foods with two meals, but he needs to have these with each meal.

So for example, in the evening he could add rice to his evening meal.

'cause at the moment he's got fish cakes and salad.

So a starchy food there would be a good addition.

He needs to drink more.

If you add up all the drinks, he hasn't got enough.

So we know that we should have between six and eight drinks per day.

So we need to consider how the diet could be changed to make sure he drinks more.

Other responses could include having things like a low fat yoghourt or perhaps not having any food at all which is high in sugars or salt.

So for example, if you look at the snacks that he had, he had crisp and chocolate, so that could be changed.

He had fish, but the fish cakes could be made from oily fish, so that would be an improvement, an enhancement to the diet.

And although he had breakfast, he could have had a whole grain cereal and perhaps use semi-skimmed milk in order to reduce the fat.

There are lots of different changes that could be made always to make sure becomes a better diet, making healthier choices.

Well done.

I really hope you've enjoyed this lesson.

It's quite a lot to take in, but there's some really fundamental things that you can do to have a healthy, more balanced diet for the future, and obviously to make better food and drink choices.

So remember the diet is not a slimming diet, it's about all the food that a person usually has over a period of time.

We looked at the eight tips for healthy eating and these are practical tips that we can use to take healthy eating advice and make it simple and use it every single day.

And based on the Eatwell Guide food groups, we know that there's a number of servings of different portions we could have.

So for example, having five portions of fruits and vegetables, having three to four portions of starchy carbohydrate.

And this helps when you are planning menus and meals for a day.

We also looked at the the change in portion size.

So bigger portions often mean that there's more energy perhaps in foods, more calories.

So we need to think about the portion size as we go forward.

And also we know that we can use the Eatwell Guide, the eight tips and our information around portions to help us make better food and drink choices.

I hope you've enjoyed this lesson.

You've done brilliantly.

I'm really pleased with your progress.

You've done excellent and I really hope to see you again very soon on another lesson.

Okay, take care.

See you soon.

Bye.